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Alan Shearer has urged Newcastle United’s Saudi Arabian owners to underline their plans for the club amid concerns the project has stalled.
The Public Investment of Saudi Arabia purchased an 80% stake in the club — which increased to 85% in July — in October 2021. A month later, Eddie Howe was appointed as head coach and within two years took a team that was battling relegation to playing in the Champions League.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund looks across the practice range ahead of day one of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 at Carnoustie Golf Links on October 03, 2024 in Carnoustie, Scotland. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund looks across the practice range ahead of day one of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 at Carnoustie Golf Links on October 03, 2024 in Carnoustie, Scotland. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund looks across the practice range ahead of day one of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 at Carnoustie Golf Links on October 03, 2024 in Carnoustie, Scotland. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Indeed, Shearer has aimed his concerns higher up the food chain at St James’ Park.
“To suggest nothing has changed would be ludicrous and wholly false, but the adrenaline rush has given way to a hangover,” Shearer told The Athletic. “There are legitimate questions to be asked and how about these for starters: what’s happening with the chief executive? What’s happening with the stadium? What’s happening with the training ground? What’s happening with new signings?
“In turn, Newcastle would have some legitimate answers, like due process, not rushing huge decisions and the millstone of profit and sustainability rules (PSR), but the overall effect feels like drag, delay, an anchor.”
In 2024, the Magpies have failed to secure a new signing capable of immediately strengthening their starting XI. They were forced to sell Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson in the summer for PSR reasons before a long pursuit of Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi counted for nothing.
“More than three years down the line, that progress is less easy to explain,” Shearer continued. “Newcastle are growing their commercial and marketing departments — they are unrecognisable in that sense — but their footballing story is not so clear.
“Players have short careers and the biggest, most ambitious clubs do not go two windows without strengthening. And they do not go two seasons without Europe, which is now a distinct possibility.
“There may be perfectly logical reasons for it, but St James’ is largely unchanged and a new training ground remains an aspiration. For this team, for this era of players in the here and now, what does Newcastle’s project actually mean? What are they playing for beyond money, pride, themselves or whatever else? Is this a blip, a brief pause? What does Howe point to right now?”
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Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi were very much the face of the takeover until they departed in the summer after PIF and RB Sports & Media acquired their stake at an 85%/15% split. Shearer, like many others, is unsure who - if anyone - has taken their place.
PIF governor and Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan has attended just one of the Magpies’ fixtures this season — the 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur in August, though chief executive Darren Eales — who will soon step down from his position due to health reasons — and sporting director Paul Mitchell are regulars in the stands.
“Whatever else, Staveley and Ghodoussi were very present and very visible,” he said. “They were brilliant at front-of-house stuff, close to Howe and the team and it felt like they brought a drive, a vision. Newcastle needed that after the cold, aloof Ashley era. But who is selling the vision now? Is anybody explaining it inside the dressing room, let alone to the rest of us?”
Shearer has called on PIF to speak out: “And above them, the people in charge of it all — PIF — should come out and set the tone. Ultimately, it’s the owners who have the final say on big infrastructure projects, who can press the button, who can explain and then prove that drift is temporary but the vision endures.”
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